


Mere Monstrosity

by FrenchTwistResistance



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-05-13 07:30:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19246630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrenchTwistResistance/pseuds/FrenchTwistResistance
Summary: Paris is before Berlin.





	Mere Monstrosity

Paris is before Berlin but basically contemporaneous and very nearly the same.

A tiny apartment among mortal artists: exposed brick, cigarette smoke, intermittent hot water, plenty of pretty girls, late nights, hair of the dog, extravagant hobbies, illicit meetings, intellectuals and reprobates, and a sense of romantic pending doom.

Hilda had learned to cook in Paris.

She had learned a lot of things in Paris.

Zelda had learned to really fuck in Paris.

She had learned a lot of things in Paris.

They had both learned a lot of things in Paris.

xxx

Paris is before Berlin, precedes Berlin, foreshadows Berlin.

But unlike Berlin, Zelda is there, too.

They had lived together in that tiny apartment. Had shared so much cigarette smoke and hair of the dog. Zelda had been jealous over the pretty girls and intermittent hot water. So Hilda had had her own intellectuals and extravagant hobbies.

Hilda thinks even now that that’s why Zelda likes foreign newspapers. Hilda had always been more adept at spoken language. So Zelda must prove herself with reading. An unspoken jealousy.

xxx

Paris in the 1920s is a lot.

And they’re there together. And they’re both a lot, too.

Hilda has an affinity for expatriates and hats. Zelda has an affinity for painters and absinthe. Their affinities overlap.

xxx

Hilda is there first, reveling.

It’s at a revel that Zelda appears.

Zelda is on the arm of a painter, drinking absinthe, and Hilda is on the lap of an expatriate, wearing a supremely bizarre hat, when Zelda says above the din of revelry,

“Hello, Hilda.”

Hilda looks up from where her expatriate is trying to tie a cherry stem into a knot with her tongue.

“Hello, Zelda.”

“I might’ve expected you in Kansas City—” Zelda begins, but Hilda cuts her off:

“But here I am, in the City of Lights.” They look at each other for a second. 

Then Hilda’s companion—a disillusioned poet hailing originally from Wisconsin—finally succeeds at her cherry-stem venture, and she sees it, bounces and claps and kisses her on the cheek. Hilda’s focus is on the woman whose lap she occupies, but Zelda is still looking only at Hilda. Zelda jerks herself from her own painter, says,

“Here you are, in the City of Lights.”

xxx

Hilda sleeps with the Wisconsan.

Zelda sleeps with the painter.

xxx

But the next day, they breakfast together. And they don’t stop breakfasting together the whole time they’re both in Paris.

Their days and nights are different, but their mornings are the same. 

Eventually, Zelda is sharing Hilda’s twin bed in the tiny apartment. It’s always past midnight when she arrives. It’s always past two when she snuggles in. It’s always past three when she’s the little spoon. It’s always seven when Hilda slides out and starts breakfast.

They breakfast together.

Many months later…

xxx

Many months later...

“Sculpture today?” Hilda says, flipping toast in the frying pan on her very small stove.

“Yes,” Zelda says. “Rodin’s hands!”

Hilda laughs:

“Compared to Ruby’s hands?” 

Ruby’s an American artist, Nebraska-born—very talented and very dexterous. They’ve both taken her to bed in their individual turn. Separately but knowing the other had had her.

Zelda flinches.

“I didn’t mean to—” Hilda says. 

Zelda blinks and composes herself, extends her hands, flexes her fingers in the air.

“Ruby?” Zelda says. “Ruby wishes she were so lucky.” Zelda realizes what she’s doing, folds her hands in her lap. She says clinically, “Ruby wishes she were Rodin.”

“Ruby wishes nothing of the sort,” Hilda says.

“Regardless,” Zelda says.

“Regardless,” Hilda says.

xxx

Paris is a lot of things.

Paris in the ‘20s is much more.

xxx

It’s all thunderstorms and intimacy.

Silent spooning and chatty breakfast.

Newspapers.

xxx

Paris is before Berlin.

Little spoon Zelda says in the dark,

“But do you know anything about the French?”

“The French are very eccentric,” Hilda whispers.

“They certainly are,” Zelda whispers back. “They use their tongues so freely and ardently.”

There is a long pause.

“May I show you what I’ve learned from the French?” Zelda says. It’s less than a whisper. It’s a breath. It’s a hope.

“Please do,” Hilda breathes. “I’ve always been an avid student.”

There is a shift. A shift of bodies. A shift of consciousness. A shift of understanding.

Zelda is on top of Hilda now. Their legs are tangled together, and Zelda’s eyes are earnest yet wild.

“The French—” Zelda starts.

“Fuck the French,” Hilda says. “I want you.”

“You want me to what?” Zelda pants.

Hilda grips Zelda’s wrist, pulls it toward her hot wet cunt.

Zelda penetrates her, and they both gasp and moan.

There are fingers and sighs. There is this and that and this and that again.

They both feel it. They both climax, shuddering and cursing.

xxx

Paris is before Berlin.

Berlin has its charms.

There are plenty of cabaret singers who want to fuck Hilda.

But Hilda can’t help but want what she’s already had.

xxx

Paris is before Berlin.

Berlin has its charms.

There are plenty of cabaret singers who want Zelda to fuck them.

But Zelda can’t help but want what she’s already had.

xxx

Paris and Berlin are a lot. Hilda and Zelda are both a lot together and separately.

Another horrible war happens in which they’re both a lot.

They grieve together and separately.

There’s a terrorist nephew to tend to together and separately.

Edward dies, and there’s a baby to raise. They grieve together and separately. They parent together and separately.

They are together and not together.

xxx

Satan is not their Dark Lord.

He’s certainly an entity that has been important.

But now he’s chained in his own prison, and it feels so right even as it has upended them.

xxx

They don’t talk about Paris or Berlin. They talk about a lot but not that. Not that. Not this. They talk and don’t touch. Until they do. Until they don’t talk and do touch.

xxx

“I miss him,” Zelda says from the darkness of her own bed. She’s looking across the expanse between them and not seeing in the absolute gloom but also seeing without seeing.

“You don’t,” Hilda says. “You miss the idea of him. You miss what you were to him.”

Zelda hums. Hilda continues,

“But whatever you were in relation to him, you’re more to me.”

There is a taut silence, and then Hilda says,

“We have no god now. What is idolatry?”

Zelda gasps at that.

It’s still so dark. They’re both still in their own beds. Hilda hears, knows, says,

“I’ve always worshipped you. And as much as you have denied it, you’ve always worshipped me. Why shouldn’t we worship each other?”


End file.
